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HHO is the gas resulting from electrolysis of water. Two H's and an O when seperated are very flamable. On top of being abundant it is cheap and cleaner burning than gasoline. Operating on purley HHO requires lots of modifications to a car but suplementing your gasoline with HHO requires little. There are a million sites out there on HHO car conversion kits. All of them are building plans for anywhere between 50 to 500 dollars. It seems odd that there is no instructable on it. So here, for free, is my attempt at making one. The text at the top is my first try and the text under the "-" line is my second try.
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Signing UpStep 1Tools and Materials
This page ended up changing through the process and can vary depending on how you choose to improve upon the design I used.
Tools:
knife or strippers
soddering iron(not essential but saves time)
screw driver
voltage tester(depends)
*drill
*#7 bit
*1/4" tap
*may change depending on the electrode you use and how you connect it to the wire
Materials:(Keep in mind all the materials I used are "borrowed" from work or I had around the house so they won't be the most effective solutions. Be creative with what you use)
Plastic container (I used a grape juice bottle)
High temperature silicone sealant <-expensive; regular silicone sealant MAY work
Wire (I used some left over wire from the amp that went in my wife's car, 14awg)
Teflon tape
Plastic tubing (I had to siphon gas once to change the fuel pump and had this hose from it, not sure why I kept it but I'm glad I did)
salt (for an electrolyte in the water)
Stainless Steel Electrode(update: THIS WILL NOT WORK)
I put this one on bottom because it will have the biggest explination. I am told stainless isn't esential but will not corrode like other metals. I also read that coiled wire would be the best type(i.e. pipe, plate, wire).Platinum would be your number 1 choice but who can afford that? I used some pipe I found at work.
-updates-
-I ended up using the graphite from 2 pencils as my electrodes
Tools:
knife or strippers
soddering iron(not essential but saves time)
screw driver
voltage tester(depends)
*drill
*#7 bit
*1/4" tap
*may change depending on the electrode you use and how you connect it to the wire
Materials:(Keep in mind all the materials I used are "borrowed" from work or I had around the house so they won't be the most effective solutions. Be creative with what you use)
Plastic container (I used a grape juice bottle)
High temperature silicone sealant <-expensive; regular silicone sealant MAY work
Wire (I used some left over wire from the amp that went in my wife's car, 14awg)
Teflon tape
Plastic tubing (I had to siphon gas once to change the fuel pump and had this hose from it, not sure why I kept it but I'm glad I did)
salt (for an electrolyte in the water)
Stainless Steel Electrode(update: THIS WILL NOT WORK)
I put this one on bottom because it will have the biggest explination. I am told stainless isn't esential but will not corrode like other metals. I also read that coiled wire would be the best type(i.e. pipe, plate, wire).Platinum would be your number 1 choice but who can afford that? I used some pipe I found at work.
-updates-
-I ended up using the graphite from 2 pencils as my electrodes
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I've noticed a couple people insisting in the comments that supplementing fuel with oxyhydrogen will not work. There have been official studies that prove an increase in fuel efficiency. Several are listed here http://www.eagle-research.com/cms/er-hyzor-resources/fuel-savers-general/er-hyzor-general/board-electrolyzers-work
Eagle Research also has a book on how to design and build your own generator
http://www.eagle-research.com/cms/node/204
or you can get a fully assembled device along with all the instructions for installing it and optimizing it
http://www.eagle-research.com/cms/node/579
Just who is the spammer here? Just who is "sidestepping actual points"?
And how is it that MY "claims" are "tired"? Really? Am I the one who posts the identical claim, over and over, ad nauseum? Whether or not such claim has anything whatever to do with the post to which it is supposed to be a reply to, (and it generally doesn't)?
Hydrogen is a catalyst.
I can go on. You have made quite a few claims here that have no evidential backing just to explain away all the reasons HHO doesn't work..
For that matter, what I actually did say, I doubt that I did so "at least three times". If I did that many, certainly no more than three, which gives lie to the implication of "at least three times". And, to the extent that I repeated myself, it was as a responsive comment. You see, unlike certain commenters, I am conscious of spamming the same non-responsive "reply", over and over.
My recollection is twice, though it could have been exactly three times. I am certain that it was no more than that.
And if one goes back to read my posts, one will find that I indeed did NOT say "The energy required to split water isn't related to the energy from burning the hydrogen", or anything like it.
And I quote, in its entirety: "Except that the energy required to break the molecular bonds in water has approximately NOTHING to do with the energetic contribution of the resulting H2 and O2 molecules to the combustion process of an ICE engine. Or hadn't you thought of that?"
Did I say anything about "the energy of burning hydrogen", most especially JUST hydrogen?
And I did NOT say "hydrogen is a catalyst".
Words mean things, and you should respond to; and refer to; some semblance of the meaning of what I said, rather than what appears to be some telephone game straw man that you chose to construct.
Just what are these "quite a few claims here that have no evidential backing"? Given "quite a few", it should be easy to find them. Try direct quotes this time.
BTW, not everything that happens in the real world has "evidential backing". And I have have been presenting my thoughts on what is really going on as "ideas" and "theories", not proven fact.
What's funny to me is that I have primarily been arguing what is happening in an HHO system AS A WHOLE, not just the HHO generator itself, in isolation, as you and a certain commenter seem wont to do.
Even if I had said every single thing that you claim, you have NO right - NONE, zip, zero, nada - to tell me to "shut up". Look at the top of this page. It says "share what you make", not "try to stifle all discussion that you don't agree with".
Name, say, five claims I have made that have "no evidential backing". Surely it won't be hard to do from a pool of "quite a few claims"
For example you claimed that the energy input to split the water had no relationship the the energy output at least 3 times here including a misguided attempt to point at high temp steam electrolysis.
'You are lying an (sic) it''s (sic) public record that you are', eh? It's a law of argumentation that the burden of proof of an assertion is upon the person making the assertion.
For my part, I don't believe that this forum is the proper place for argumentation, particularly the attempt to use it as a tool to stifle discussion, or the psuedo-noble pursuit of saving the gullible from themselves.
As for "ncluding a misguided attempt to point at high temp steam electrolysis", I didn't "point" to anything like you claim. I thought the quote was an interesting bit of information, and, in fact, actually made the point that you and another commenter have been trying to make. The article, (which I provided the link to), AND the quote I posted, also had an explanation of enthalpy, which makes your same point.
So, please tell me how making your point is some attempt to mislead people into believing something that is different than your point? And tell me how I have ever claimed "the energy input to split the water had no relationship the the energy output" even ONCE, let alone three times? I have NEVER argued the point that somehow, magically, the energy output, measured at the output of the HHO generator, is higher than the energy it takes to make the HHO. That is just plain silly, and I would never, ever assert such a thing.
Try reading my actual quote. I looked it up for you and posted it above. Words mean things, and I will not let you try to twist mine into something they don't actually say.
Oh, so I don't know chemistry or physics now? Add this to your professional, at a distance, opinion of my psychological state, and my intent, based in its entirety on posts I made on a website! Wow, you must be some amazing sort of human being, to be able to come to these conclusions, having such scant evidence to work with.
Yeah, I'll agree that I've "got no let (sic) to stand on", because I don't even know what that statement means, so I'll take your word for it.
I am saying "others have it wrong"? Am I really? Well, I suppose I am when someone makes an absurd statement like a higher compression ratio will make more power, but it takes more fuel to make that power.
If I were as judgmental as you appear to be, I suppose I would label that as a sign of ignorance as to how ICEs work, and I'm not like that.
Otherwise, I don't remember asserting that someone is "wrong". I've had a few people tell me plenty times that *I'm* wrong. Is that what you're referring to?
I offer other theories as to how this system could work in the real world, and certain other people assert that *I* am wrong. Is that what you mean"
You yourself have made an assertion that supports one of my ideas as to how these systems can work, and a certain, self-appointed protector of the gullible has made an assertion that supports another of my ideas.
Just what "ad hoc claims" are you referring to? And exactly when did I "repeat" them? Please enlighten an old man. Maybe my recall is getting weak in my old age.
If I were indeed "repeating the same ad hoc claims", (which I do NOT stipulate), at least I am posting in actual response to, and relevance to the posts to which I am replying.
I still can't believe that you characterized ME as a "spammer". That is fairly comical in and of itself.
One mans short lived dream back in 1996 was too dilute Hydrogen into conventional valves and mix cubic gases and exchange like for like. As if it was LPG a by-product of the premium 90-95 ron. With gas now sequenced into a diesels and petrols expensive ways around ideas.
The facts that soft valve seats, and dry and high pressure fuel intakes pre designs. Indeed there will phase out some favorable suitable conversions, especially if Health and safety premiums are gigantic threat. hence a dying , defying the failed infrastructurebrought on by accidental owners of self destruction, irony.(such technology !! it was only meant to win a war technology, not blow the bloody doors off !!
Irony was no efforts taken to fund a trillion dollar trade back then, left an unknown possible clean but unbalanced world was too much a steep curve to trade currency . Biggest potential future documented human fate insight is what names are naming. Head in sand no longer in control.
IF only we had not the combustion engine, quality of life would be certain. H20 is the lifeforce behind organic matter. Water god is the biggest reality if all facts were on the table.
Pocket technology is evolving faster than the human brain . Water and changing gravity metamorphism evolution intellect, is the same water traveling within a molecular times and many spaces. Addictive water inhabits life and all memory maybe fictitious entity to human ears. But is what it is, thats all, a given thought should indeed identify a source of value. See sandman files.
Say its only rational to be a sheep. Legislation and the red tape wont stop you legally spending 5k on a laboratory legal mains plugin hydrogen fuel cell. Of corse its a potential hazard . And with no legal certification this would need some attention, they will want to know what you want it for. If you wanted it for say, dispense into handy sized fuel cells,into unkown safe use to then be diluted signature fuel. And qualified. But these fuel cells sell. Look into the algia and ancient desert water in libya where gadafi,s water pipes ran for farms maybe. Now algia future production under hot sun. Including energy infrastructure built in iraq. Future is key and fight to the death for it, begun.Much to human embarrassment, and thats just the half of it.
So if it wasn't for potential helium3 shortage, and moon farming .Talking electric supply and demand for coal extraction decay. The liquid fuel price for both x10 .Travel is the least of ones problems. Of coarse free energy will never happen, idealistically. imagine the immediate threats of multiple armies defending each colony.
Not on each others continent, but back yards. Family and work wont be a viable trade and strict belief would be uneducated without the dumbing down. So think soldiers of unlimited power defending there own secure but insecure potential feelings. As if we could handle being equals,loving thy neigbour, not forgetting we are more like territorial fish at best, we cant escape our environment, doesnt matter how much trillion we spend on space missions.
And yes without are need for genetic enforced integration program would have to exist, forms to fill in etc but more future tech, potential disease life longevity test rather than natural selecton, if only a joke. As most of the population born from adventure and discovery from single oil product of a this efficient population explosion created as if it will never be delt with in a pleasant manor than it all ready is, without media daily paranoia.
Just a raw feed of subconscious bot signature active voiced internet. Certainties are of the love of others. do not do to others that you would'nt do to yourself. Has been fickle and winds of changed future transmission. Take onboard what ,prof Albert Bartlet put it down so lovingly and so well.
And youtube so your heart desires, sure you have blue motion hydrogen vw's and the like where you will be able to lease - rent. Not own mind you . Same goes for electric lifepo4 and newer lithium with all the 10 min charge points with all the same ions going same direction.
You may own the car but not the battery, that too is tobe leased. Before the status quo period of transition shortly followed by the mad max vision of just how much people love a pain free travel freedom ideals. The reality of eastern europeans and go plant a tree now! for gasification survival later. Isnt a bad one.
Much evidence of smouldering irony of bales of hay, emitting no flame only capturing the filtered abundance of potential energy into medium sized tanked latex balloon. Trapped with bottleneck levels Valved off into semi convenient heating less dangerous than methane
.Only where farmers and law of land does not permit such arial or underground storage solution. Getting back to hydrogen, i just wonder if the population burnt off the same energy amount of say 85 million peak barrels of oil a day,say that of all possible hydrogen, that eats oxygen fast like a Eurofighter turbine engine. what percentage of oxygen would be left in the air. Effecting the growth rate and entire species of every living species.
Also the outcome of the water, if not already polluted, enough by nuclear and the have to say moronic fracking for survival of Americas grip of reality with the likes of haarp requiring a billion watts of power. Going off again beef production alone is more problematic than vehicles efficiency.
Along with it Brown dwarf stars and admiration for modern chinese way of life,zero tolerance. the future is the concern. The past has been too radical, to stop the self relenting human rights, well without any honour the physics remain.
But the maths thats a different story. Oh and yes its not a closed system. History repeating now, so bring on the zero gravity quantum physics, well at least the tram travel super-conducter lines, first powered by hydroelectric off shore power plants. Then more green business like the rather large chinese space solar mission running.
Not until Carbon based chip production, more production of sustainable lithium ,helium,cheap neodium magnets while saying no to no tar sands, no natural shale gas drilling,no cheap food production,no to green politics, no to corrupt business ethics, no to amplified electricity certainties, no to free plasma energies, not including the growing list of discoveries that are disclosed.
Google and the like have there systems on backup with almost free energy powercells that are silicon based. So if all sats fail, and lay-lines suit affordable budgets for human gain. We will always have a hydrogen problem.
Computer says no. So we should all unplug. Need someone to come up with the internet 2, without the need of sats, then you have a true public domain. There trying novel private spy-planes drones ,to webserve. Irony is there guidance systems rely on satnav gps..
Mild rant over.
yes we are only as mad, as the world you live in.Consider it, a luxury to dwell or even choose.
Hydrogen will still combust sufficiently to run an engine, at ratios higher than stoichiometric. Far lhigher, which is good, because apparently NOx is much higher at that ratio.
I thought that was full throttle under load, not just high load.
On top of that, given the losses in converting mechanical energy to hydrogen (which I've covered so many times that I'm not going to cover them again), these systems will always, always, always produce a drop in fuel economy.
...and if you can't produce a catalytic effect from hydrogen 'in a test tube' you're never going to produce one in a 4-stroke engine.
You can fool yourself if you like- but don't try to fool anyone else, mkay?
Hydrogen has no catalytic effect. It does not improve the combustion of anything, petrol included.
Modern piston engines with fuel injection and computerised engine management systems manage to burn 99% of the fuel introduced into the engine. However, piston engines are only about 30% efficient in converting the energy in petrol into mechanical energy. This inefficiency is not due to failure to combust the fuel efficiently, it's due to friction and a requirement to limit the combustion temperatures, both to preserve the integrity of the metals the engine is made of and prevent the formation of nitrogen oxides (atmospheric air is about 73% nitrogen- extremely high combustion temps form NOx). Quite a lot of the heat produced by burning petrol in a piston engine is removed by the cooling system instead of being used to move pistons. Adding more fuel (and that's all hydrogen is in this application) or replacing some petrol with hydrogen does nothing at all to reduce the losses in a piston engine.
Last time: 'HHO' is a HHOAX. There's no way to generate hydrogen using an automobile charging system that will not reduce fuel economy nor will hydrogen reduce the losses in a piston engine. Any technique which removes mechanical energy from a drive system and converts it into other forms of energy will always reduce the efficiency of the drive system, due to the laws of thermodynamics and entropy. There's losses in every conversion.
If you want to improve the efficiency of a piston engine, you must find a way to make use of thermal energy which is wasted and/or exhaust pressure or reduce friction losses.
Please read above: "Share what you make" NOT "Criticize what other people make", or even worse: "Climb up on your high horse and try to prevent other people from making, or even discussing, that which you do not approve of"
The comment thread on this instructable has gone spiraling out of control. Has it really been two years? Sheesh.
Since then I have taken a physics course and rest my conclusion with "oooobabyoooo", as weird as their username may be.
However, I would like to point out that this device could improve fuel economy simply by powering it with a different source (ex. a solar panel).
As "lloydrmc" already pointed out, aerodynamics would be more efficient at improving fuel economy. (you guys all need new usernames)
However, using an outside source to power an electrolosis unit would allow for more efficient burning of the main fuel source, it would not create a more efficient system in total, as a solar panel, water, electrolyte, and carbon rods all use energy too.
Bottom line- increased gasoline burning efficiency with outside source, overall decreased efficiency of the system, but less wast produced.
Seriously, thank you for being so adult and reasonable, and for choosing to treat your fellow commenters as euals. Certain people could learn from your example.
*IF* you could find a way of recovering that 1%, you'd theoretically improve the fuel economy of a 30mpg car to 30.3mpg- but I say 'theoretically' because the 0.3mpg would be difficult to reliably measure. Suffice it to say the 1% recovery is insignificant.
If someone wants a real problem to solve, go after piston engines' abysmal efficiency in conversion of heat from fuel into mechanical motion. There's about a 70% loss to friction and dumping of quite a lot of the heat out the cooling system & exhaust pipe.
Mind, since fossil fuels are going to be a relatively short-lived power source for vehicles given the effects of anthropogenic climate change and dwindling supplies of said dino-fuel, if you really want to put your scientific brain to good use, go work on storage battery efficiency & energy density.
According to the California Energy Commission:
"Engine Losses - 62.4 percent
In gasoline-powered vehicles, over 62 percent of the fuel's energy is lost in the internal combustion engine (ICE). ICE engines are very inefficient at converting the fuel's chemical energy to mechanical energy, losing energy to engine friction, pumping air into and out of the engine, and wasted heat.
Advanced engine technologies such as variable valve timing and lift, turbocharging, direct fuel injection, and cylinder deactivation can be used to reduce these losses.
In addition, diesels are about 30-35 percent more efficient than gasoline engines, and new advances in diesel technologies and fuels are making these vehicles more attractive."
That is, making a certain set of modifications to my car that result in, say, being able to use a 20% leaner fuel mixture, doesn't actually result in using less fuel, because EVERYTHING on earth and in heaven, bow to the mighty god of thermodynamics, no matter how limited our understanding of it. So, nothing actually happens, (or can happen) in the 99% end. Mere mortals, and (especially!) non-believers in the great god thermodynamics are relegated to, at most, 3% of the 1% that the great god of thermodynamics allows us access to.
Besides, even THINKING about making these modifications will cause the emission control police to descend upon you and fine you "tens of thousands of dollars", it increases NOx emissions, and magically caves the entire crowns of your engines' pistons in.
Also, one of the god's acolytes might wish woe upon you, such as permanent engine damage e.g. holes in your pistons.
Some years ago, a renowned engine builder experimented with what he called an "adiabatic engine". I wonder if he had the same sort of acolytes insulting him.
The big waste you cite is the poor conversion of thermal energy to mechanical motion. Petrol piston engines waste a lot of energy both in friction and the requirement to keep engine temps down to prevent meltdown of the pistons, valves etc. and to reduce the production of nitrogen oxides (atmospheric air is ~70% nitrogen which combines with oxygen at high temperatures to form NOx). This wasted heat energy leaves the engine via the cooling system & exhaust.
As such, the introduction of hydrogen, in any quantity, from any source, will not address the main cause of inefficiency in petrol piston engines. Even if it could improve combustion efficiency, you'd be looking at recovering the energy from the 1% of unburned hydrocarbons that pass the exhaust valves- which is insignificant.
"HHO" toys do not produce enough hydrogen to have any effect whatsoever on the performance of a petrol piston engine. Moreover, they take more energy from the crankshaft than they return to it, meaning they can reduce fuel economy but never can they improve it.